MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET (Mark Solsman) (01/05/90)
I strongly disagree with the use of PCTools. One late night as my bbs ran its timed event, pctools decided to totally screw up the entire users-file. There was no apparent reason for this act, no breaks or power-inturrupts, and the dos err level was gnarley! If you value your disk's contents- just say no to PCTool However, I highly recommend the Norton Utilities Advanced Edition 4.50 ------- Mark Solsman US mail -> 1012 Whippoorwill Drive Clarks Summit, Pa 18411 BitNET -> MHS108 @ PSUVM.BITNET InterNET -> MHS108 @ PSUVM.PSU.EDU RelayNet -> Mark Solsman (direct mail to node OUTER)
cantie@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Bruce Cantie) (01/05/90)
In article <90004.231733MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET> MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET (Mark Solsman) writes: >I strongly disagree with the use of PCTools. One late night as my bbs ran its >timed event, pctools decided to totally screw up the entire users-file. There >was no apparent reason for this act, no breaks or power-inturrupts, and the dos >err level was gnarley! If you value your disk's contents- just say no to PCTool > > However, I highly recommend the Norton Utilities Advanced Edition 4.50 > ^-------------------------------------^ Will this also work for disks formated with 4.01? I know for a fact that PCTools will not, and the copy of Norton that we have will not do much for a 4.01 HD. We tried to rin Speed Disk on a PS/2 mod. 30-286 and it would not even read the disk right. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Cantie Internet: cantie@cs.Buffalo.EDU Micro Support Group uucp: ..!{boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!cantie LAN Systems BITNET: cantie@sunybcs.BITNET University Of Buffalo BITNET: micbruce@UBVMS.BITNET -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kaleb@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley) (01/06/90)
In article <90004.231733MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET> MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET (Mark Solsman) writes: > > However, I highly recommend the Norton Utilities Advanced Edition 4.50 > I have found that Norton 4.50 on MS-DOS 4.01 frequently hangs if disk cacheing is on. Make sure that SMARTDRV.SYS is not running before running Norton's speed disk! Chewey, get us outta here! kaleb@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (818)354-8771 Kaleb Keithley
cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) (01/07/90)
In article <90004.231733MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET> MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET (Mark Solsman) writes:
$I strongly disagree with the use of PCTools. One late night as my bbs ran its
$timed event, pctools decided to totally screw up the entire users-file. There
$was no apparent reason for this act, no breaks or power-inturrupts, and the dos
$err level was gnarley! If you value your disk's contents- just say no to PCTool
I take it the BBS goes off-line while doing this ...
I've never had a problem with PCTools Compress, personally. But any
program that accesses the disk drive leaves open the possibility of damage.
If you're doing a disk defragment on a regular basis, you should probably
do your backup right before it (which, in case you hadn't noticed, Compress
recommends that you do, and probably so do other programs) so that if
the worst happens, you have a very recent backup from which to restore.
--
Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
<std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
****************************************************************************
If it's true that love is only a game//Well, then I can play pretendho@fergvax.unl.edu (Tiny Bubbles...) (01/08/90)
From article <90004.231733MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET>, by MHS108@PSUVM.BITNET (Mark Solsman): > I strongly disagree with the use of PCTools. One late night as my bbs ran its > timed event, pctools decided to totally screw up the entire users-file. There > was no apparent reason for this act, no breaks or power-inturrupts, and the dos > err level was gnarley! If you value your disk's contents- just say no to PCTool As I always do when someone attacks a software package, I'm going to have to ask exactly what PC Tools did. What program did you run? What did you ask it to do? Were you running other tasks in the background? "late night" ... were you watching so that you knew PC Tools was at fault, and not just a periodic disk crash? Disks /do/ crash occasionally, despite what the manufacturers say. I'm not trying to stick up for PC Tools per se -- I'm trying to defend all software packages which are blamed for routine failures. As the co-sysop of a Lincoln (Neb.) bulletin board, I get complaints all the time -- at least once a week -- from users claiming that their hard drives were eaten by this application or that. Well-known and stable programs like Telix and ProComm. Useful programs like Con->FMT and CTRLALT. Most of all, programs which I know can and do work. If you found a genuine bug in the program, my apologies. But I've watched too many quality programs get slandered this way, and I'm to the point of disbelieving just about anyone with claims like yours. Especially if they are not substantiated. --- ... Michael Ho, University of Nebraska Internet: ho@hoss.unl.edu USnail: 115 Nebraska Union BITnet: cosx001@UNLCDC3 Lincoln, NE 68588-0461
liberato@drivax.UUCP (Jimmy Liberato) (01/08/90)
pen@tuura.UUCP (Pekka Niemi) writes: > I have been using Golden Bow, Inc.'s (hope I recall the name right 8-) > 'Vopt' for several years and still value it over PCTool's 'compress' > and Norton Utilities. It is interesting to pit the various "deframenters" against each other. For example, Vopt and Norton's SD seem to use completely opposite notions of what is optimum. Use one or the other first and then use the second one. The supposedly optimum disk is seen as being all messed up by the second one. and it takes forever for it to redo the work of the first one! Quite hilarious. Vopt is definitely the quickest. SD puts all the directories first which many prefer. PCT Compress is the most sophisticated and "careful" (though someone here did mention a bad experience with it). I have no recommendations to make because I don't think they are all that important (unless your hardrive is a real slug). -- Jimmy Liberato ...!amdahl!drivax!liberato
dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (01/08/90)
In article <S1CC8HW@drivax.UUCP> liberato@drivax.UUCP (Jimmy Liberato) writes: > >It is interesting to pit the various "deframenters" against each other. ... >I have no recommendations to make because I don't think they are all that >important (unless your hardrive is a real slug). Besides speeding up your disk, remember that defraggers make it much easier to recover from accidental erasures - if a file is contiguous when you erase it, unerasing it is a breeze. If it's got fragments all over the place, you don't have much chance at all, unless your utility stores extra information the way Norton's Format Recover does. Duncan Murdoch
jmann@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Jim Mann) (01/09/90)
I've used PC Tools' disk optimizer/defragmenter dozens of times and have never had a problem. I know others who also have had no problems. If you had a problem, did you contact Central Point Software. I've found the folks there to be helpful when I called their technical support line.
RHOPGOOD@ucs.UAlberta.CA (Robert Hopgood) (01/09/90)
In article <15502@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, cantie@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Bruce Cantie) writes: > Will this also work for disks formated with 4.01? > I know for a fact that PCTools will not, and the copy > of Norton that we have will not do much for a 4.01 HD. > We tried to rin Speed Disk on a PS/2 mod. 30-286 and it > would not even read the disk right. > I use the PCTOOLS 5.1 compress utility with DOS 4.1 on a 386 machine and have had no problems with it. I have been told that Norton Utilities Advanced Edition is designed to work with DOS 4.1 so you should have no trouble with either choice. robert